A Muslim pilgrim reads a replica of the Quran on the Grand Mosque throughout the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Amr Nabil/AP
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Amr Nabil/AP
Muslims are the fastest-growing religion group, adopted by the religiously unaffiliated, in response to a brand new Pew Analysis Middle examine measuring the evolution of the worldwide spiritual inhabitants between 2010 and 2020.
Christianity grew by 122 million members in that decade, however declined as an total slice of the world’s inhabitants. Nonetheless, Christianity stays the world’s largest faith, with 2.3 billion believers — practically 29% of the world’s inhabitants.
Pew’s International Non secular Panorama examine, launched on Monday (June 9), is the second version of a demographic report of spiritual teams, began in 2010.
“We look at the demographic characteristics of these groups, their age structure, how many children they’re having, how much education they have, because these demographic characteristics affect the future size of the religious groups,” Conrad Hackett, a senior demographer at Pew Analysis Middle, advised RNS.
The report reveals how spiritual disaffiliation and inhabitants development influenced the worldwide spiritual panorama.
The world’s Muslim inhabitants elevated by 347 million individuals over 10 years — greater than all the opposite religions mixed — primarily attributable to pure demographic development.
“Muslims are having children at a greater number than Muslims are dying,” Hackett stated. “Very little of the change in Muslim population size is a result of people becoming Muslim as adults or leaving Islam as adults.”
Researchers relied on 2,700 knowledge sources, together with nationwide censuses, demographic surveys, inhabitants surveys and inhabitants registers, to doc the spiritual affiliations of 100,000 individuals throughout 201 nations. Whereas questions diversified from one survey to a different, most individuals have been requested in regards to the faith with which they recognized.
The examine additionally analyzed spiritual knowledge along with knowledge on fertility and mortality charges and age distribution to measure demographic adjustments between 2010 and 2020. It additionally famous delays within the assortment of knowledge brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Muslims are largely concentrated in areas with excessive inhabitants development, just like the Center East-North Africa area, the place they characterize 94.2% of the inhabitants, and sub-Saharan Africa, the place they characterize 33%. The Muslim inhabitants grew essentially the most within the Asia Pacific area, which is residence to the biggest Muslim inhabitants, rising by 16.2% between 2010 and 2020.
In the meantime, Christianity declined by 1.8%, primarily attributable to bigger inhabitants development amongst non-Christians. It steadily declined in Europe, North America, the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Christianity stays the bulk religion across the globe, except for the Asia-Pacific and Center East-North Africa areas. It is now essentially the most geographically dispersed spiritual group, the examine exhibits.
Religiously unaffiliated individuals at the moment are the third largest group behind Christians and Muslims, with 24.2% figuring out as such.
“This pattern is common in European and North American countries, as well as in Australia and New Zealand, where many people who were raised Christian no longer claim any religious affiliation,” reads the report.
These leaving faith enormously impacted the proportion of the world’s Christian inhabitants. “Christians are seeing a lot of people who are raised in the faith changing as adults to people who don’t identify with any religion,” Hackett stated.
The examine marks the primary time Pew has tracked spiritual switching patterns, aggregating knowledge from 117 nations of individuals ages 18 to 54 concerning the religion they have been born into and the faith they establish with as adults.
In North America, the religiously unaffiliated inhabitants elevated by 13 proportion factors between 2010 and 2020, reaching 30.2%. Nones grew by 4.1 proportion factors in Latin America-Caribbean over the identical interval, and by 6.6 proportion factors in Europe, reaching 25.3%.
Asia Pacific is residence to the biggest religiously unaffiliated inhabitants, with 78% of the nones inhabitants residing within the area. Nearly all of the world’s nones inhabitants, 67%, lives in China. Nevertheless, Hackett famous the issue of capturing the complexity of religiosity in China, on which Pew has performed analysis.
Buddhists are one other group impacted by spiritual disaffiliation within the East-Asian area, with extra individuals leaving the religion than becoming a member of between 2010 and 2020. It’s the solely spiritual group that has fewer members in 2020 than in 2010, having declined by 19 million individuals, in response to the info.
Nevertheless, the examine notes that the Buddhist inhabitants estimates do not totally seize the affect of the religion, as many Buddhist respondents could not establish as Buddhist regardless that they interact in Buddhist practices.
Hindus, representing 14.9% of the world’s inhabitants, are the fourth largest group on this planet. Nearly all of Hindus dwell in India (95%). And between 2010 and 2020, the variety of Hindus elevated by 62% within the Center East-North Africa area, largely attributable to migration. In North America, the Hindu inhabitants elevated by 55%.
The world’s Jewish inhabitants, the smallest spiritual group analyzed within the report, grew by 6% between 2010 and 2020, from about 14 million to fifteen million individuals. Jews characterize 0.2% of the worldwide inhabitants, which remained stagnant over 10 years, and 45.9% of Jews dwell in Israel — the best proportion in any nation.
This story was produced by way of a collaboration between NPR and Faith Information Service.
